


my insides are copper, i'd kill to make them gold

by somebody_im_not



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: F/M, Movie: Resident Evil: Vendetta, basically claire is the redfield in the b.s.a.a., no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25261168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebody_im_not/pseuds/somebody_im_not
Summary: Claire Redfield of the B.S.A.A. needs an expert. She knows just the one. He's not the same guy she remembers.
Relationships: Leon S. Kennedy/Claire Redfield
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	my insides are copper, i'd kill to make them gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> angst, 06 - "forget it. you're a fucking asshole." + cleon
> 
> so i got this request from a mutual and it grew :') now i'm looking back and i'm not sure how close to the prompt this is jfhdkjhd

Claire and Rebecca walked through the doors of the small inn. Claire internally cringed. This was where they were going to find Leon? What had happened to him?

Without even looking up, he let out a crappy one-liner. “Careful you don’t scare the locals. Your stealth’s for shit.” Some things never change, she thought wryly. Except the alcohol. She could swear that she’d never seen him drink this much. Then again, she hadn’t seen him in so long.

“Hey, Leon. Didn’t think we’d find you here.” She said softly. He immediately turned around and she could see the shock on his face before it morphed into that cruel mask she hated to see.

His voice turned derisive and he almost laughed out, “So, The B.S.A.A.’s golden girl and Dr. High Hopes.” It dropped down to the defensive and angry tone that Leon took on a majority of the time. “What do the both of you want?”

She kept her voice steady. This was just business, her former interactions with Leon be damned. “We need your help. And it seems, your experience.”

Leon chuckled, not that hearty one she cherished, but that dark, depressed one she absolutely hated. He stopped short and caught his breath, and tightly said, “I’m on vacation,” in a tone that indicated he didn’t want anything to do with them.

Claire wasn’t going to take that shit. None of his vacations led this deep in the bottle. Something had happened. Rebecca hadn’t noticed. She moved to put her laptop and med kit on the table behind Leon’s, getting straight to it. “Let’s talk about Los Illuminados. Remember the type of B.O.W.s they were using?”

Leon put down his glass and looked down, bangs falling over his eyes and that scar Krauser had given him. “That’s so long ago. I don’t even remember.”

And that? That, was such absolute horseshit. Just, Leon wasn’t the kind of guy who’d forget things. He’d agonize over them, working himself into such a fit because of his stupid belief that he wasn’t good enough. She’d been woken up too many times by his nightmares to ever believe he’d forget something as monumental as Spain. She couldn’t think of that now.

Claire just shook her head in response and softly said, “You know that’s not true, Leon.”

He looked up at her, eyes narrowed. Almost as if just to spite her, he turned to the bartender behind them and waved her over. “Hey, another bottle here.”

She wasn’t going to stand for that shit. She put out her hand and to the same bartender, said, “Cancel that.”

The bartender walked away with an unhappy expression but that was pushed to the side when Leon looked up at her with anger flashing in his eyes. He’d really been put through the ringer. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Immediately, she bristled. Who was he to speak to talk to her like that? “Enough! You can’t keep doing this!”

His eyes turned unreadable. His voice also went down a notch, almost vulnerable in a way but still hardened from the shitshow that was their lives. “What do you want, Redfield?”

Each word was punctuated, sending arrows through her heart. She’d been busy with the B.S.A.A. for a while now, putting together the Silver Dagger team and teaching new recruits that she hadn’t had the time to check up on Leon. Her mistake. She didn’t think he’d want her to anyway. Wasn’t as if their breakup had been mutual. “What do _you_ want, Leon? You really just going to sit around here and do nothing? That isn’t like you.”

He just chuckled darkly, all essence of humour gone, washed down with all the alcohol. “Heh. You don’t know what I’m like.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a whiskey flask and carefully opened it, keeping eye contact with her the whole time, almost daring her to stop him.

Forgetting herself, she lashed out and grabbed him by the arm before he could take a drink. Angrily, she said, “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Rebecca suddenly interjected with a, “Guys! Come on,” and Claire remembered herself. She let go of Leon awkwardly and turned towards Rebecca. She continued, “Leon, I’m sorry to interrupt your vacation but we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t serious. We think you have some intel and we need it now.”

Leon carefully kept his eyes on Rebecca, ignoring Claire. If that meant he’d help them, then she was fine with it. He was one of the few agents that had experience with the Plaga and was still kicking. They needed to know if this incident was in any way related to it.

After a short moment, he shortly huffed to himself and then with a heavy resignation, asked, “What intel do you need?”

Internally, she breathed out a sigh of relief. At least he’d help. She followed Rebecca and brought her computer over to the table opposite Leon. They both took a seat opposite him. She let Rebecca start with the details on the new virus. When she started on its transmission status, she interjected, “Look, it’s spreading. And fast.”

Rebecca immediately caught what she’d been going for. “All the researchers and staff at my university were infected. I was lucky to get out.”

Leon put his head in his hand and breathed out, voice shaky around the edges. “This again, huh? It’s like I’m stuck in a goddamn loop.”

She sighed heavily. She felt the same way every time she was called in for another mission. But she wouldn’t rest until these damn viruses finally got wiped from the face of the earth.

Rebecca, however, didn’t seem to know what Leon had meant. She asked, “What are you taking about?”

This time, it was Leon who sighed. He seemed to be steeling himself up for something and some selfish part in Claire let him start his story. She needed to know. “You know that bomb that went off in D.C.?”

At their nods, he said, “Well, it was _my_ mission to stop the terrorists. We got to our rendezvous point and…and some _asshole_ ratted us out. The bomb went off and everyone on Metro SWAT, my whole unit…gone, like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“I keep fighting and fighting and _fighting_. But instead of seeing an end to this shit, it just keeps getting worse.” He took a breath to compose himself before continuing, “Is this what my life’s supposed to be? Fighting the living dead and the bastards that make them? What’s the point of it all?”

Claire had no reply to that. The man in front of her didn’t feel like the one she’d met in Lanshiang, almost like a pale imitation of the Leon she knew. Something in him had withered, this endless fighting the reason. Hopefully it hadn’t fully.

She turned the computer around to display Arias’ ID. At least, as much as they had on him. “I’m really sorry, Leon, but we do need your help. Look, this is Glenn Arias, an arms dealer. He went underground for a few years after a smart bomb was dropped on his,” she paused for a second, “his wedding. He lost everyone he had that day. He’s back on the market now, with B.O.W.s.”

She looked Leon in the eye. “He said his products have targeting capabilities.” Her mind flashed back to Cathy, how she’d directly gone for her without even looking at Arias. Then, she shut down that train of thought because she didn’t want to be consumed in a flashback now of all times. “I believe him.”

Leon looked like he was considering it for a second before his face dropped into a grimace. “So, an arms dealer on one side…and on the other, a government dropping bombs on weddings. Who’s the bad guy here?”

She kept her voice as calm as possible, but already a hint of frustration was bleeding through. “Arias. Do you think I’d agree with what the government’s done to him? _Obviously not_. But it’s our mission to bring him down.”

Leon’s anger was mounting and he was doing a worse job than her at putting it down. He jabbed a finger at her, almost pettily and shouted, “You mission! Not mine!”

She could’ve yelled. Instead, she went the other route, though not a route she was proud of either. She stood up haughtily and said, “Forget it. We never should’ve come here. You’re such a fucking asshole.”

This time, Leon stood up too and started, “How dare you –” before he was cut off by Rebecca.

Ever the peace maker. She yelled out, “Stop!” causing the two of them to stop in their tracks. She pointed at them both and slowly said, “I don’t know what’s happened between you two but you have to push it aside. There are more important things than whatever this is. God, I cannot believe how alike the two of you are.”

That was news to the both of them. She looked at Rebecca quizzically. Leon made his question vocal, with a, “What are you talking about?”

Instead of actually answering, Rebecca went the petty route too. Glad to know the three of them could be such little shits. “You’re acting like a couple of selfish brats right now.”

She fell silent and got up from the chair she’d settled on. Claire and Leon looked at each other, faces screwed in confusion instead of anger for the first time since they’d separated. Rebecca walked over to the med kit sitting on the table next to theirs and unlocked it. Her field of view didn’t let her see what Rebecca had taken out but when she turned around back to them, she could clearly see what it was.

An injector, she thinks. Rebecca brought it over her own arm and pulled out some of her blood. She looked at them and said, “The virus is right under our noses, always has been.”

Again, she remained confused. She told Rebecca, “I’m sorry, I don’t get it.”

Rebecca started to explain. “We don’t need to look for some new virus that Arias is infecting people with. The virus is lying dormant inside of everyone.” She pointed at Claire. “Even you. What we need to find…is the trigger. Something activates the latent virus and only Arias knows what it is.”

That…that made too much sense. The virus had already been spread, through whatever routes were open to Arias. Must’ve been many. That would explain how not everyone had gotten infected in her doomed mission in Mexico.

Rebecca continued, now filled with a fervent. “But until we find that out? Everyone, living _and_ dead, are his potential weapons.” She addressed Leon especially with her next line, “If we don’t figure this out now, there won’t be quaint little towns like this for you to drink your sorrows away in _ever again_.”

Even Claire felt that was too harsh. But Rebecca had worked herself up and didn’t show any signs of stopping soon. “I created a vaccine and I tried it on myself. It works. But until we figure out now Arias triggers the virus, who knows if it’ll work the same for everyone else.”

She took out the canister full of her blood from the injector and held it in her hands to prove her point. “My blood holds the answers. If I die, get this to a lab you trust.”

She slammed it onto the table, shocking the both of them. As if Claire would let Rebecca die. Rebecca moved backwards. She wasn’t done yet. “You know, I can’t imagine what the both of you have been through. Alone _and_ together. But what I do know is that neither one of you are the kind of person who’d sit here and argue while the world dies. Don’t make me change my mind.”

With that final statement, she walked out of the room, towards the restrooms. Both Claire and Leon were left in abject silence.


End file.
